Maj Jacob Gerstein and Capt Colleen McCormick need your help to revolutionize the way Civil Air Patrol recruits and engages its adult members! Learn about their program for reaching broader audiences, pinpointing skilled recruits, and effectively articulating the benefits of CAP service. Let’s make CAP membership more useful, relevant, and rewarding for the average American.

I would say for some SMs, a problem is training for the day that never comes. Unless you are part of a AP crew for floods. (AP, MO, MP) And live near an area that floods.

One of the slides from the video:

"Volunteers want to see tangible results of their efforts"

Some of our new SMs are involved with our Cadet Program. Seems to me that would be one of the best targets for new recruits. Adults who enjoy teaching and working with Cadets. Every meeting, they are doing what they enjoy. No waiting months or years for an actual emergency. Every meeting they are mentoring Cadets.

CAP doesn't have a recruiting problem, they have a retention problem. Eliminate the BS that causes members to walk away and membership numbers will soar.

You mean like stop treating SM like day one USAF recruits, yelling and disrespecting them in front of a classroom full of cadets, parents and other SM? Stopping that type of BS would probably help

Yeah. That would be bad. I've been in 5 squadrons as a SM and have never seen that. I don't doubt that it happens but it needs to be nipped in the bud real fast. We all know the AF don't even yell at their recruits like that.

CAP doesn't have a recruiting problem, they have a retention problem. Eliminate the BS that causes members to walk away and membership numbers will soar.

You mean like stop treating SM like day one USAF recruits, yelling and disrespecting them in front of a classroom full of cadets, parents and other SM? Stopping that type of BS would probably help

Yeah. That would be bad. I've been in 5 squadrons as a SM and have never seen that. I don't doubt that it happens but it needs to be nipped in the bud real fast. We all know the AF don't even yell at their recruits like that.

Maybe it's just me, however I still don't think anyone cares about "exit surveys" any longer. Before we can effectively recruit/retain members, we must entertain those pesky facts relating to good leadership, proper training, effective use of said member, and integrating them into "our community"...... just sayn'...

CAP doesn't have a recruiting problem, they have a retention problem. Eliminate the BS that causes members to walk away and membership numbers will soar.

The retention issue is a real one, but we do in fact, also have a recruiting problem, and it's quite huge.

Recruiting and retention are very intertwined. If you can reduce the retention issue, it will organically help with recruiting. There is an old customer service saying that a person who has a bad experience will tell everyone they know but a person who has a good experience will only tell a few people. Just like in the military, every CAP member is a recruiter. Depending on their CAP experience, they will be a positive or negative recruiter.

If we can make it a more enjoyable experience then people will want to stay and also bring in their friends. If we make it a bad experience, we just run current members away and the potential members that they might have recruited.

The retention issues can not be fix via recruiting, and in some cases over-recruiting just makes the retention issues worse.

Bringing people into an organization that is not ready, or able,to accept them, simply to increase numbers, risks their long-term affiliation for a short-term gain,and also potentially grows the "tell three friends" chain on a negative curve.

Unfortunately the issues which affect retention will require actions NHQ has historically been uninterested in entertaining. If one assumes "New CC, New day", you're still talking about an evolution that will be 3-5 years to fruition, and that may, or may not have started with the new HEADCAP.

Targeted recruiting happens when you know the kind of people you're going after.

For example, if you recruit at an AOPA safety event, you're clearly targeting pilots. Versus just recruiting at the mall.

Setting up a booth at a STEM fair is targeting a certain kind of teenager, as opposed to just setting up in the cafeteria.

Targeted recruiting gets you higher quality people in the pipeline, who are more likely to be retained. You still have to work hard to keep them, but they're more predisposed to liking what CAP is offering.

You mean like stop treating SM like day one USAF recruits, yelling and disrespecting them in front of a classroom full of cadets, parents and other SM? Stopping that type of BS would probably help

I never saw that in 17 years of CAP. However, my first unit did have military-style unit assemblies at the start of every meeting in the drill hall of an Armed Forces Reserve facility. I thought it was a good thing. It built esprit de corps and drew us closer together as a unit. There was no yelling or humiliation. But I would bet we were one of the few squadrons in my then-Wing with seniors who could do drill and ceremony as well as cadets could.

I was thinking more about roadblocks thrown in the way of promotions, professional development, emergency services training and the GOB flying club mentally, but you do have a point.

I did see and experience this in 17 years of CAP. And for those censorious naysayers who want to just say "oh, you're just bitter" - das tut mir leid. Ban me, complain about me, but it does not change the fact that it happens. Making me go away from CT or silencing other dissenters will not solve a problem.

Like I learnt in the AA, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem.

And until this problem is kiboshed, very little, if anything, will change with CAP recruiting/retention.

CAP lost not just me, but they have lost a lot of otherwise-dedicated members over bollocks like head-tripping CC's, impenetrable Group/Wing GOB/G networks, promises made but not kept I know some of them.

No, I will never be back in CAP. But that doesn't mean I have lost all affection for the organisation that I gave 17 years of my life to, or for the truly quality-orientated members who remain and trying to be the voice of one calling in the wilderness on behalf of them. After all, since I am out of the organisation, nothing can be done to be done to me. Oh, yes, I can be banned from CT, but it won't change anything within the organisation.

Yes, I am doing quite well for myself now in the CGAUX, thank God. But there are many members of both organisations who are dual-hatted and it is only to the benefit of both organisations if positive reform is implemented in CAP.

Logged

Whaddaya mean I ain't kind? I'm just not YOUR kind!

Ex-CAP Captain, now CG Auxiliary, but still feel a great deal of affection for the many good people in CAP.

CAP doesn't have a recruiting problem, they have a retention problem. Eliminate the BS that causes members to walk away and membership numbers will soar.

The data does not back up what you're saying.

Retention is certainly factor that could be improved in the organization. No question.

However, no volunteer organization ever retained its way in to growth.

For the last 17 years, our monthly new member joins has continued to trend downward for both cadet and senior. Senior retention has been relatively flat, and cadet retention is actually up a little bit. But we're taking in less new members now than we were a decade ago.

Without retention all you have is churn, which might be fine for affinity organizations, but is death to organizations which need experience and expertise to fulfill their mission.

The sweet spot of "tens years experience" has essentially evaporated in the last decade, and that's not something you can simply recruit your way out of.

Considering what little fire there is about recruiting (beyond rhetoric), there's nothing aroundretention, or even much interest when long-term veterans, the people CAP needs most, either quit abruptly, or start dialing down their presence.

There isn't even a way to actually track who's a real member. So while I can't argue yourcurve of new members, there's no way to actually know how many "real" members there are.